Monthly Archives: August 2008

The Republican Platform Committee retained a prohibition of Internet gambling in its draft platform, which will be approved at next week’s GOP convention.

The language, which had been a part of the last two platforms, includes the following: “Millions of Americans suffer from problem or pathological gambling that can destroy families. We support the law prohibiting gambling over the Internet or in student athletics by student athletes who are participating in competitive sports.”

Chad Hills, analyst for gambling research and policy at Focus on the Family Action, said: “Today, those afflicted by gambling addiction and families with children can be grateful for the great delegates who kept Internet gambling prohibition as part of the GOP platform.”

“A Cherokee County casino on a stand-alone basis would be very difficult to justify, given the market conditions there … the competition across the street.”

This wasn’t the first time Penn National Gaming tried to use threats to get what they wanted. As reported by Casino Watch, they tried to get the lottery to accept a contract with less than the $250 million dollar upfront investment required by Kansas law. These threats seem to be simple business practices for Penn National.

It has been long understood that the most addictive gambling game is slots. A team of researchers in Canada used this understanding to examine the slot machines themselves, not just the gambler, to better understand such addiction and the results might be startling. The Star Phoenix explains:

[Nevada inventor Inge Telnaes] wrote: “It is important to make a machine that is perceived to present greater chances of payoff than it actually has within the legal limitations that games of chance must operate.”

What Telnaes had invented, in other words, was a slot machine that fooled gamblers into believing their odds of winning were good when, in truth, their odds of winning were lousy. He accomplished this by divorcing the gameplay from the reels. In the Telnaes slot machine, on which almost all current models are based, a microchip determined the outcome of each spin.

The outcomes were still random, but the machine differed from mechanical models in one significant way: It was programmed to stop with blanks on the payline more often than winning symbols. What Telnaes had created, in effect, was a slot machine version of a loaded die. Though most modern slot machines have animated reels, a disconnect remains between how slot machines appear to work and how they actually work.

So the machines do not have fair odds. Even though you might see, for example, seven items on the real, your odds of landing on one of those items is not one in seven. But if the odds of winning are so terrible, then why do so many people keep putting money in the machines. The researches go on to explain the “near miss:”

Much of the money is coming from gambling addicts. About 60 per cent of revenues from gaming machines come from the wallets of problem gamblers, according to a 2004 University of Lethbridge study. Many slots players find it difficult to pull themselves away because of a deceptive feature of Telnaes-style slot machines: the near-miss.

As anyone who has played slots knows, you see more than the symbols on the payline after each spin; you also see the symbols just above and just below. A near-miss, sometimes called a heartbreak loss, occurs when a symbol needed to win appears adjacent to the payline.

Near-misses create an “Aww, shucks” effect that keeps slots players glued to their stools. Studies have shown that frequent near-misses lead to significantly longer playing times. As one researcher put it: “The player is not constantly losing, but constantly nearly winning.”

These machines are highly deceptive and highly addictive. If casinos ever had to actually display the odds of winning on these machines people might never start playing in the first place. Don’t be fooled.

With online gambling, lotteries and casino games becoming more and more accessible to our youth, it’s no wonder why the News Tribune is reporting that by the age of 20 half of Missouri youth have gambled. Renee Cunningham-Williams, an associate professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University, conducted a survey of those between 14 – 25. The most concerning question centers around the level of illegal gambling that must be taking place and when we should intervene to slow the risky behavior. The News Tribune explained:

It wasn’t clear precisely how much illegal gambling the youths engaged in, since the survey involved both children too young to legally gamble and young adults old enough to legally make wagers. In Missouri, people must be 18 to play the lottery and 21 to get onto the gaming floor in a casino.

Cunningham-Williams said early intervention could be helpful in reducing risk-taking gambling behaviors. “If we intervene now, we may prevent problems down the road,” she said.

With the gambling industry in a nationwide decline, gambling cruise ships are attempting to dock at Port Canaveral in Florida to lure gamblers.

Cruise line officials want to relocate because of mounting competition from land-based, Indian-run casinos and a shrinking consumer dollar, Florida Today reported.

Chad Hills, analyst for gambling research and policy at Focus on the Family Action, said gambling entities are desperate for business.

“As gambling invades new areas, it acts much like a black hole that drains money out of local economies, takes customers and revenue away from local businesses and causes a net economic drain on surrounding communities,” he said. “Port Canaveral likely will have a sinking boat in its harbor.”

Justice won’t be swift for Rep. Joe Aull, D-Marshall, who won’t stand trial for his alleged role in the Isle of Capri case until June 25, 2009, according to Pettis County Circuit Court records.

Aull is accused of giving Sen. Jeff Smith, D-St. Louis, his identification to enable Smith to gamble at the Isle of Capri casino in Boonville on July 31, 2007. Aull, Smith and four others were at the casino on a lobbyist-financed junket, paid for by Isle of Capri lobbyist Chris Liese, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records.

Aull is being tried in Pettis County on a change of venue from Cooper County. Smith and former Isle of Capri lobbyist Lynne Schlosser will stand trial in Cooper County. A Sept. 30 hearing is scheduled in their cases with trial tentatively set for November.

JEFFERSON CITY – 8/14/08 – A lawsuit was filed today in Cole County Circuit Court challenging the constitutional validity of the casino-backed ballot initiative, which was certified last week by Secretary of State, Robin Carnahan. The initiative petition seeks to not only remove the $500 loss limit, but it also seeks to place a cap on the number of casino licenses.

Those two actions, according to the lawsuit, are not only different subjects, but they are also “competing positions with varying purposes.”

Audrey McIntosh, the filing attorney explained, “The Missouri Constitution requires that voters be given a single subject when changes to state laws are proposed by initiative petitions. This lawsuit raises the constitutionality of having numerous subjects placed before voters in the same ballot measure.”

Evelio Silvera, Executive Director of Casino Watch, a St. Louis based watchdog organization, said, “Missourians should have a fair opportunity to vote for a single subject and not be disenfranchised by being forced to chose between multiple subjects. We look forward to the opportunity to engage in the debate and inform the voters of Missouri on the nature of the issues.”

Silvera also commented on the deceptive nature of the casino coalition calling themselves “Yes for Schools First,” as they are entirely funded by the casino industry who is not looking out for schools, but rather their own bottom line.

Silvera explained, “the casino’s have long tried to tie gambling money to education in an attempt to gain support for expanded gambling, but this petition goes beyond what is constitutionally allowed.”

This is a news blog for Casino Watch staff, volunteers, scholars and policy makers. The views expressed by each contributor to this blog are those of that contributor alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of Casino Watch.